Leo's eyes widened, his usual bravado replaced by a look of sheer disbelief. "Okay, yeah... that's new."
They rushed.
It wasn't the chaotic scramble of a typical street fight. That was the problem. This was organized chaos—a synchronized flood of movement where every attacker knew their place before the first punch was even thrown. Every angle closed at once. Every escape route disappeared before Jessie could even think to take it.
It was a trap. Perfectly executed, and they were right in the center of the web.
Jessie moved—or tried to.
His mind commanded his limbs to react, to pivot, to strike. His body responded, but there was a sickening disconnect. For the first time since this journey began, there was a gap. A delay. A fraction of a second where his mind surged forward into the fight, but his physical self lagged behind, heavy and unresponsive.
Too many angles. Too many variables.
It was simply too much.
"MOVE!" Leo shouted, dodging back as two attackers cut toward him from opposite sides.
Jessie forced his focus inward, ignoring the sweat stinging his eyes. Activate it. Now. He waited for the familiar interface—that layered, predictive awareness that turned the world into a series of solvable equations. He looked for the threads, the outcomes, the edge he always relied on to stay alive.
Nothing.
The HUD flickered in his vision, a ghost of a machine. It glitched, a jagged line of static tearing through his line of sight, and then—it was gone.
Jessie's breath hitched. "No..."
He tried again, harder this time, reaching into the mental space where his partner lived. PRIME!
Silence.
A fist slammed into his side, hard. Jessie staggered, the impact ripping through him before he could brace. Another hit caught his shoulder, followed by a sharp strike to his back. He twisted, barely blocking the next blow, but his defense was sloppy. He was off-balance and out of time.
Everything felt wrong.
"Jessie!" Leo's voice was strained. He was moving fast—faster than any normal person should—but even he was getting pushed back. This wasn't a test of speed anymore; it was about pure, grinding overwhelm.
Jessie tried to breathe, but his thoughts wouldn't line up. They were colliding, stacking, and breaking apart before he could finish a single tactical plan.
Too much input.
Every movement around him felt louder and sharper, yet simultaneously delayed. He turned to face a new threat, but he was too slow. A strike clipped his jaw, snapping his vision sideways as the world blurred into a gray smear.
"Get up!" Leo barked, taking down one attacker and shoving another back with a desperate surge of strength.
Jessie planted his foot and forced himself upright. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts. Something was happening—not just the fight, but something deep inside.
"Why isn't it working..." Jessie muttered, his hands clenching and unclenching. His vision pulsed with his heartbeat, unable to decide what to focus on.
Then, for a split second, everything sharpened. A flicker.
He saw it. Not fully, not with the crystalline clarity he was used to, but a moment. A path.
"Left—" Jessie started, but the insight vanished as quickly as it had come.
An attacker slammed into him before he could react. Jessie hit the ground hard, the air ripped from his lungs.
System lag. Mental delay. Sensory overload.
And underneath the pain, something deeper began to stir. A voice, faint and distorted, started breaking through the static in his mind.
"...—ssie..."
Jessie froze. That wasn't an external sound. That was—
PRIME?! he snapped internally.
Static. Then: "...processing... failure..."
Another lunged. Jessie rolled barely in time, feeling like he was fighting through deep water.
"Jessie, we gotta MOVE!" Leo shouted. They were losing ground fast.
Jessie pushed himself up again, his head pounding with a rhythmic, dull ache. "Why are you—" he gritted his teeth, his voice a low, strained growl, "—not helping me?!"
For the first time since they had bonded, there was hesitation from the AI.
Then: "—system... recalibrating..."
Jessie's eyes narrowed. "You picked a great time!" He dodged another strike, the wind of the fist whistling past his ear.
But then, the noise shifted. It didn't disappear, but it began to yield to a new kind of order. It was slower, more selective. Jessie's breathing steadied. He wasn't calm, but he was finally back in control of his own skin.
Another attacker moved in. Jessie's eyes tracked him—not perfectly, but better. His body responded—still a fraction late, but closer than before.
Leo noticed the change immediately. "Okay... okay, you're back—kind of—what is happening to you?!"
Jessie didn't answer. He didn't have the words. He could feel something breaking, a fundamental structure of his mind giving way. And something else was trying to take its place.
"...adapting..." The word echoed faintly in his mind.
Jessie's jaw tightened. "Then adapt faster."
The next attacker came in. Jessie shifted and dodged. It wasn't clean, and it certainly wasn't perfect, but he wasn't helpless anymore.
The fight wasn't over—not even close—but it was no longer one-sided. Whatever Prime was doing, whatever was changing inside him, it wasn't just a malfunction.
It was the beginning of something new.